UPDATE: Altar girls and the Extraordinary Form – the PCED clarifies the situation

The Instruction on the application of the provisions of Summorum Pontificum, entitled Universae Ecclesiae, in paragraph 28, says in an English version:

Furthermore, by virtue of its character of special law, within its own area, the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum derogates from those provisions of law, connected with the sacred Rites, promulgated from 1962 onwards and incompatible with the rubrics of the liturgical books in effect in 1962.

So, if there is a conflict of law between what is found in the 1962 books and what was issued subsequent to the 1962, the what was issued subsequent does not apply for the celebration of the Extraordinary Form. That would include such post-Conciliar innovations as female service at the altar.

UE 28 clarified that females are not permitted to act as servers for the Extraordinary Form.

You may recall that at the University of Cambridge in England, even before Universae Ecclesiae was issued, the Catholic chaplain, who had also celebrated there the older form of Mass, made a decision that his male, female integrated team of servers, should serve also at the older form of Mass. That meant that he employed altar girls, women, to serve at the Extraordinary Form. When Universae Ecclesiae was issued, he continued with this practice.

This situation generated claims on both sides regarding UE 28, some people claiming that that paragraph did not bar females from serving.

I have now a copy of a letter sent by the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesiae Dei” and signed by the Secretary Msgr. Guido Pozzo, which clarifies that UE 28 in fact does say that females cannot serve at the altar in the Extraordinary Form.

The letter essentially quotes UE 28 and then states:

In this regard, the Circular Letter of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments of 1994 (cf. Notitiae 30 [1994] 333-335) permitted female altar servers, does not apply to the Extraordinary Form.

Bottom line: females may not serve at the altar in the Extraordinary Form.

However, I understand as well that, though the chaplain at Cambridge has also had this clarification from the PCED for some time, as recently as Saturday 5 June he continued to have females serve at the altar for the Extraordinary Form.

This all goes beyond the single issue of the sex of the person serving at the altar. There are other innovations subsequent to 1962 to which UE 28 applies. It is important that, early on, the meaning of UE 28 be clear and also be accepted. It is important that, early on, the PCED get involved when Summorum Pontificum and Universae Ecclesiae are misinterpreted.

UPDATE: Altar girls and the Extraordinary Form – the PCED clarifies the situation

22 Responses to UPDATE: Altar girls and the Extraordinary Form – the PCED clarifies the situation

Faithful Catholics must insist that this is enforced. Any priest who would do such a thing should be reported to his bishop and Rome and the Mass ought to be boycotted in the meantime (obviously go to Mass some place else). If you want to stop it, stop it now. No point whinging about it when the horse has bolted. The door is open, and the horse is about to leave. Anyone up for stopping it? Act now.

skull kid, boycotting the Mass could be playing into his hands. A priest who doesn’t like the Old Rite, but who was under pressure to offer it, could have female servers (or something else improper) in order to drive people away to the point where he could say that attendance was so poor that he was cancelling it.

RichardT: I don’t see what else can be done. By attending such a Mass, do you not signal your approval? I don’t know what other language would be understood than by boycotting the priest in question. If a priest is saying the EF Mass unwillingly and is introducing abuses, then we’re as well without his input.

Let me clarify a little. Fr McCoy made known his desire to have female altar servers last September. From that time onwards several students and others had tried to dissuade him, explaining that it was not allowed in EF Masses. He simply would not listen, often becoming rude. He had already signalled his intent in an article he wrote for The Tablet in 2009. It is this situation which provoked the students to write a dubium to PCED asking for a ruling on the matter. His promise became reality in early May 2011 when we were presented with a female server at the Vigil EF Mass.

The reply from the PCED came recently. Note the date of the PCED letter, less than a week after the publication of the Instruction Universae Ecclesiae. When asked about the letter he simply replied, ” As it’s not addressed to me personally it has no force in law. It is not valid.” He has also expressed his intention to continue. So that is where we are at present.

Clearly, this will now go to the diocesan bishop and then no doubt back to the PCED. I can personally vouch for the fact that Fr McCoy has always been approached with great respect and in a spirit of Christian charity. Sadly, this has not been reciprocated. No one is doubting Fr McCoy’s piety, and indeed he has been an excellent chaplain but in this matter Fisher House has been badly let down.

I should also mention that Fr McCoy only agreed to say the EF Masses, reluctantly it seems, upon being requested to do so by a group of students, in agreement with the conditions stipulated in Summorum Pontificum, the very people who have been most offended. Although one must admire his charity in agreeing to say the EF Mass, he has proceeded to make the Old Rite Liturgy very much his own, to do with as he pleases. For example, he says the Canon in a loud voice, encourages the congregation to join in with the Pater Noster and other parts of the Mass which pertain to the priest. I almost feel that he has taken it upon himself to unify the Extraordinary Form and the Ordinary Form.

I hope that in some way I have been able to clarify the muddy waters of the River Cam.

Fammarshall, it’s interesting that Fr. McCoy takes the line that as the letter from the PCED
in response to a dubium regarding female altar servers at the EF was not addressed
to him personally, it has no force in law and is not valid. I say it’s interesting because the
admission of females as altar servers for the NO Mass was deemed legal in another letter
issued in response to a dubium regarding female servers and the new Code of Canon
Law of 1983. A letter that, I suspect, was also not addressed specifically to the good Fr. McCoy.

In other words, the good Father seems to believe that when one letter is released permitting
female servers in the NO Mass it is legal and valid, even though the letter was not addressed
to him personally. However, when another congregation releases a letter stating that female
servers are not licit for the EF Mass and the PCED fails to mail Fr. McCoy his personal copy
that means the ruling has neither legal force or validity.

fammarshall,
Inviting the congregation to join in the recitation of the Pater Noster at Low Mass is not an abuse, and is specifically allowed in dialogue Masses under De musica sacra et sacra liturgia, issued by the Sacred Congregation for Rites in 1958:
32. Since the Pater Noster is a fitting , and ancient prayer of preparation for Communion, the entire congregation may recite this prayer in unison with the priest in low Masses; the Amen at the end is to be said by all. This is to be done only in Latin, never in the vernacular.

I never said it was an abuse as such. I simply have the impression that he wishes to take elements of the NO and apply them to the EF, such as praying the canon aloud and the use of female servers which are of course permitted in the NO. But where is the authority to do that in the EF? If we are going to have the EF then we should stick to the rules as laid down by the Vatican. This means not only embracing the rite but also the missal, which includes the liturgical calendar, and also the underlying sprituality. Coming so soon after the publication of the Instruction Universae Ecclesiae this whole saga is a massive disappointment.

I realise that obedience is a bit of a dirty word these days, but if we take it in its correct spiritual sense then it actually becomes a liberation. In the case of the liturgy this is especially important since only in this way can it possibly shine out and not be obscured by the personal predilections of individual priests and liturgical committees.

@skull kid Boycotting the mass? Because of women altar servers? Are you kidding me? What’s next? Boycotting The Mass because another dicsiplinary law is not obeyed? Swell… I can see this bearing much much good fruit. Not.

UE 28 still seems to me to be a bit of a double-edged sword. It is great that it protects the integrity of the traditional rites, but some of the post 1962 changes were convenient. I am thinking primarily of the Rituale Romanum and the Breviarium Romanum. Are all the reserved blessings still reserved? To get a medal of St. Benedict blessed in the EF, must one now try to find a Benedictine priest who is willing to use the traditional ritual? What about blessing a rosary? Is a parochial vicar prohibited from blessing his own vestments? Must Compline be completed before midnight?

RJS0007,
You seem to have missed part of skull kid’s post where he stated ” (obviously go to Mass some place else). “. Sorry, I’m with him. There is no need, ever, to attend such a Mass.

Search Fr. Z’s Blog

Search for:

When you shop…

... through Amazon, please, come here first? Enter Amazon through my search box. I'll then get a small percentage of everything you buy. (Pssst - Can't see the search box? Turn off your "ad-blocker" for this site!)

My wish lists

The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the LORD.

- Proverbs 21:31

For Easter: another ethereal music CD from the chart-topping nuns…

Support them with prayer and fasting.

CLICK to buy Car Magnets & Stickers

Aedificantium enim unusquisque gladio erat accinctus.

- Nehemiah 4:18

"Let God arise! Let His enemies be scattered! Let those who hate him flee before His Holy Face!"

CLICK and say your Daily Offering!

Let us pray…

Grant unto thy Church, we beseech
Thee, O merciful God, that She, being
gathered together by the Holy Ghost, may
be in no wise troubled by attack from her
foes.
O God, who by sin art offended and by
penance pacified, mercifully regard the
prayers of Thy people making supplication
unto Thee,and turn away the scourges of
Thine anger which we deserve for our sins.
Almighty and Everlasting God, in
whose Hand are the power and the
government of every realm: look down upon
and help the Christian people that the heathen
nations who trust in the fierceness of their
own might may be crushed by the power of
thine Arm. Through our Lord Jesus Christ,
Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee
in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world
without end. R. Amen.

Yes, Fr. Z is taking ads…

... and there will be nearly 1,000,000 page loads this month.

A bit more food for thought…

“Only one sin is nowadays severely punished: the attentive observance of the traditions of our Fathers. For that reason the good ones are thrown out of their places and brought to the desert.”

- Basil of Caesarea - ep. 243

Help Monks in Wyoming, Fr. Z, and get great coffee too!

Food For Thought

“The legalization of the termination of pregnancy is none other than the authorization given to an adult, with the approval of an established law, to take the lives of children yet unborn and thus incapable of defending themselves. It is difficult to imagine a more unjust situation, and it is very difficult to speak of obsession in a matter such as this, where we are dealing with a fundamental imperative of every good conscience — the defense of the right to life of an innocent and defenseless human being.”

- St. John Paul II

PLEASE RESPOND. Pretty pleeeease?

Should the US Bishops have us return to obligatory "meatless Fridays" during the whole year and not just during Lent?

Because you don’t know when you are going to need to move fast or get along without the supermarket…

Identity theft is a serious problem that you do NOT want to have. I use Lifelock.

And for your cybersecurity…

Wyoming Catholic College!

A great place in Rome…

More food for thought:

“I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”

Check out the Cardinal Newman Society feed!

Be a “Zed-Head”!

Fr. Z’s stuff is everywhere

More food for thought…

"All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void."

- Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 176

Even More Food For Thought

"Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties:
1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes.
2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests."

To set up a recurring, monthly donation (even a small one) go to the bottom of this blog and look for the drop down menu! Some donations also come through Chase/Manhattan (if you don't like PayPal).

I remember benefactors in my prayers and periodically say Mass for your intention.

I invite you to subscribe to a monthly donation.

Will you help? Go to the bottom of the page. So far, new subscribers for MARCH - TZ

Additional Food For Thought

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Fathers, you don’t know who might show up! It could be a “big fish” of one sort or other…

And... GO TO CONFESSION!

Leave Voice Mail for Fr. Z

Nota bene: I do not answer these numbers or this Skype address. You won't get me "live". I check for messages regularly.

Help the Sisters. They have a building project. Get great soap (gifts, etc.) while helping REAL nuns!

Food For Thought

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. . . . Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

Archives

ENTRY CALENDAR

Do you use my blog often? Is it helpful to you?

If so, please consider subscribing to send a monthly donation. That way I have steady income I can plan on, and you wind up regularly on my list of benefactors for whom I pray and for whom I periodically say Holy Mass.

Some options

The opinions expressed on this blog do not necessarily reflect the positions of any of the Church's entities with which I am involved. They are my own.